by PamelaDuMond
“Oh, God. He’ll be okay, right?” Derrick asked and raked his fingers through his hair. “What does the chart say?”
Annie, aka Dr. Sanjay Patel, perused Franco’s chart quickly. “Says he’s male, twenty-one-years old. His name is Franco Fennedy, and his emergency contact person is Clarissa Driver? That name sounds familiar. Why didn’t you tell me you had a son?”
“It’s complicated,” Derrick said but wouldn’t meet her look.
“You’re dead, Derrick. Your son, Franco, is damn lucky to be lying in a hospital bed when he should be dead now, too. I think that’s complicated. Telling the truth will be a breeze. Details, now.”
Derrick stroked Franco’s hand. “I didn’t know until about a year ago. I hooked up with a beautiful eighteen year old girl when I was in my late twenties, and frankly, sowing some oats. Clarissa never told me she was pregnant. Her family was wealthy and politically prominent. She was a college freshman. Two months after we started dating she said her parents decided she needed a more rounded, international education. They shipped her to Argentina for a ‘multi-cultural’ year abroad. Twenty years later, Clarissa calls out of the blue. She told me in a dark restaurant in a back booth over some great scotch and Argentinean steaks, that on that ‘year abroad,’ she had our baby and named him Franco.”
“Wait a minute,” Annie said. “Clarissa Driver? Governor Driver’s wife? Yeah there, I’d say she’s politically prominent.”
“Franco was adopted by a family friend in Argentina. Now he wanted, no, demanded, to meet his biological parents,” Derrick said. “I met him for the first time at the bus station in downtown L.A. Obviously someone took pictures and twisted them. Franco’s a great kid. He’s got Clarissa’s smarts, both of our looks and his own, very sweet innocent take on the world. The modeling was my idea. He could earn some money while he decided where he wanted to go to college and what career he wished to pursue. He’s my kid, Annie. He’s a good kid.” Derrick squeezed Franco’s hand. “Come on, son. You can fight this.”
Annie hid a tear. “Look Derrick. Once the cops read his chart, they’ll track down his mom. And, eventually make the connection between you and Franco. Do we need to warn Clarissa?”
“No,” Derrick said as he looked up and saw Detectives Rafe Campillio and Kyle Pardue approach the ICU nurses’ station. “Her family knows everything. They’re political mafia. I need you to call my plastic surgeon, Dr. Bronson.”
“Where’s the money coming from to cover the work?”
“What I left Franco in my new will can easily pay the bill.”
“Has your new will even been read, yet?”
“I don’t know. Jeez, I’m dead, give a guy a break. Ask Lewis Scuchiani, my attorney. He has all my wills,” Derrick said and pouted.
Aah, Lewis Schuchiani. Annie was headed to the little celebration for Lewis’s making Junior Partner in less than forty-eight hours. Actually, her alter ego, Duchess Myra Stoneycliff, was invited to the reception. Was Lewis the missing link in the hunt for Derrick’s killer?
When Annie overheard, “I’m Detective Rafe Campillio. Is the victim conscious? We need to interview him.” From the sound of Rafe’s voice, he was down the corridor, just yards away.
A nurse answered. “I’m sorry, Detectives. You have to wait until Mr. Fennedy is stable.”
“I’m Detective Kyle Pardue. We need to talk to him, ASAP.”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me,” the nurse said. “Franco Fennedy is unconscious and not responding verbally. We’ll let you know, as soon as he can be interviewed.”
There was a pause. Then Annie overheard, “Oh, come on, Rafe. Chances are I pinch the guy and he wakes up. We’re here. We have to at least try. I’m going with or without you,” Kyle said.
Annie’s eyes widened as she peeked through the crack in the curtain surrounding Franco’s bed, and watched Kyle approach the cubicle. “I’m out of here, Derrick,” she said as she snuck out of the cubicle and made her way down the hallway.
She wanted to bolt but forced herself to walk down the ICU hallway. She took deep breaths in and out, and strode past a hundred hospital cubicles, lots of weird equipment and mobs of white-coated professionals. Who all seemed to stare at her muddy hair that poked out of her surgical cap. She needed a distraction. To appear even more doctor-like, she reached into Dr. Patel’s medical jacket, lo and behold, pulled out his cell, and pretended to talk on it. “Blah blah. Yes, doctor. Sorry about the hemorrhoids. Ah, yes, the X-rays for the multiple contusions of the peripheral handicapped preakness candidates were positive for whooping cough and cantaloupes. I do believe the patient will live. No, the varicose veins must stay.”
Annie made it to the emergency room waiting area and walked out the sliding doors to the parking lot. She pulled off the doctor’s coat and tossed it into a waste can. Hustled to her car and zoomed off.
Detective Rafe Campillio had followed ‘Dr. Sanjay Patel’ down the hospital hallways, stood at the emergency waiting room doors and watched as Annie Rose left the hospital and trashed her scrubs in the garbage can. Thankfully, horn dog Kyle was still at the ICU desk passing out his cards to every female nurse and staff person.
Rafe knew that Annie Graceland, the nice young lady who rescued one lucky guy Franco Fennedy, knew a little more than Annie Piccolino, the baker in the Fuller homicide, had let on. This would be an interesting conversation.
When Kyle ran into the room. “I confirmed with the police on the scene. Annie Rose Graceland’s the good sam that rescued the drowning guy. I’m going over there right now and put the pressure on. Hard and firm, if you know what I mean. No need for the both of us to go - I’ll tell you about it later.”
Rafe sighed. “I’m going with you.”
Annie entered her apartment, dying for peace, quiet and a long shower or tub bath with mineral salts and a pound of penicillin for good measure. She carried the 8 X 10 envelope that she and Derrick had retrieved from the desk drawer in Franco’s apartment after they left the hospital.
She’d already checked out the envelope’s contents. More disturbing photos, this time of Derrick with Franco. As creepy as Derrick was, she didn’t pin him for an incestuous type. She therefore surmised most of the photos were altered. Which raised more questions, especially about the Mike and Derrick photos.
Teddy sat on her couch. Two bottles of Dom Perignon champagne rested on top of him. His blue eyes were completely crossed, a sure sign of major cat irritation. The smell of weed wafted through the air. The smoke was so thick that when Annie squinted, she could almost see pot plants hanging upside down in the air. Two water goblets with drops of champagne in their bottoms sat on the kitchen-living room divider countertop. She slipped Franco’s envelope under hers and Sienna’s and covered them with a stack of unpaid bills. She turned on the oven. Pulled a tray of cookie dough dollops out of the fridge, plopped it on the counter, and pulled off the sheet of saran wrap that covered it.
Loud giggles emanated from her bathroom. Julia and Grady. High and drunk again. They’d soon be raiding her kitchen for munchies. “Hey,” Annie said. “What’s the occasion?” They probably didn’t have one, but it was good to enter with a positive question, not negative commentary, like “I love you like family, but stop using my apartment as your druggie crash pad.” She slipped the tray of cookies in the oven.
More giggles from the bathroom. “Guess what?” Grady slurred.
“What?” Annie asked, grabbed the champagne bottles and lifted them off Teddy, who still looked pissed.
“We’re celllllllebratinggggg!” Julia said.
Dear God, they were both tanked. At least her special wedding anniversary libations had gone to good use, entertaining her best buddies.
“I got Bill Gable a deal. First offense, no prior, upstanding citizen, distraught father, blah, blah. A year in minimum security, including time served,” Julia bragged.
Annie dumped the empty champagne bottles in the small plastic recycling bin on the kitchen floor.
“That’s great, Julia!”
Suddenly Madonna’s Vogue rang out from her speakers at club jam volume.
“Turn that down, now,” Annie said. “Might piss off my new neighbors.”
Madonna wailed and crooned through the speakers, “Vogue, vogue, vogue, vogue, vogue – Let your body groove to the music.”
Grady flew out of the bathroom. He was naked except for his tightie whities, which were pulled up and squeezed between his butt cheeks, to resemble a thong. “My script, Diary of a Dead Guy, got accepted into the United Filmmakers’ Program. I’m going to the show!” He clutched a hairbrush as a mic, sang along as best his drugged self could to the Madonna song. “Look at me! I’m the oh-so-popular Dr. Derrick Fuller!” he said and did two pelvic thrusts to the right and a hip thrust to the left. His arms undulated overhead.
“That’s awesome, Grade,” Annie said. She picked up her stack of mail and sorted through it. Tossed the crap, kept the pink notices.
“This doesn’t thrill me. No mention of a feature with my name attached.” Derrick said.
“I don’t think they care,” Annie noticed her electric bill deepened from pink to fuchsia. The gas bill had a note on it that read, “No, really. It’s time to open this.”
Her phone rang in the kitchen. Her answering machine picked up. “Annie Rose, pick up your phone. It’s your mother. Remember me?”
She grabbed the phone. “Hey, Mom.”
“Are you having a party? Do you think that’s prudent so soon after your operation?”
“Separation, Mom. Mike and I are separated.” Sometimes her mom was scary prophetic in her choice of malapropisms. ’Cause her split with Mike felt like several very bloody operations. A lobotomy. A heart excision. All four wisdom teeth pulled without any anesthesia by a really bad dentist who looked like Dr. Putter. But, officially… “It’s a marital separation, Mom.”
“Go Der-rick! Go Der-rick!” Julia shrieked. She jumped out of the bathroom doorway wearing a too-tight purple lacy corseted teddy showcasing her ample cleavage. Garter belts held up the hose on her curvy legs and she strutted in Annie’s Irena Dragoslava CFMPs. Unlike Annie, Julia could totally maneuver in high heels. “Guess whose I am, Annie? Guess whose I am!”
“Uh, Derrick Fuller?”
“No, silly. Think…” Julia dropped to one knee, gazed at the ceiling and swept her hands dramatically in a semicircle from the ceiling towards the floor and back again. “Go ahead, guess again. Guess!”
“That’s brilliant, Julia!” Grady said and stumbled backwards, his mostly naked behind headed south toward the couch aimed at Teddy, who at the last second, vaulted off. Teddy missed almost certain death by a drunken human behind. But cats had nine lives. That was his third.
“I guess that you’re… Tawny ‘Sunshine’ Fuller,” Annie said.
Julia screeched. “Yes! You’re the greatest! I love you!” Julia smooched her on the cheek, then turned and tackled Grady, who was seated, eyes half closed and listing forty-five degrees sideways on the couch. Julia grabbed the hairbrush mic and wrestled it away from Grady who squeaked before he collapsed flat out and drooled. Julia then jumped back up and mimed not only Madonna’s vocals with the hairbrush/mic, but implied her own version of possible sexual acts appropriate to the song’s lyrics.
“Ah. Memories. Sounds just like yesterday,” Nancy said over the phone. “I get nostalgic. Whole milk from Grutztaminer’s Dairy delivered to our front door step. Freshly baked cannollis dropped off by a tall guy with a nappy boot – ”
“Snappy suit, Mom.”
“Snappy suit, driving a Lincoln Towne Car all the way from Chicago, from Vito’s Bakery. Oh, those cannollis. Don’t get me started. And Julia; drunk, high, slutty and acting out. Twenty some years later still at it. Nothing’s changed since high school, eh? That girl should have skipped law school and just become an actress showing her boobies in grade B movies.”
A neighbor knocked on a wall adjoining Annie’s apartment. “Turn it down!”
“Absolutely!” Annie hollered back, then lowered her voice. “Julia, shush! Mom said you were talented even in high school and should have been an actress.”
“That’s sweet. All these years I never thought she liked me.”
Annie turned and whispered into the phone. “I’m kind of busy, right now, Mom. Talk to you, later.”
“Do you want me to call Julia’s mother? I heard she had her tires re-done and currently lives in Seizure World in The Goon’s Peach. Ask me, sounds like a possible Mob retirement community. Maybe that’s where Julia gets her movie money.”
“Lavonnia, Julia’s mother retired and lives in Leisure World in Laguna Beach, California.”
“Lavonnia would never move from Oklahoma to California.”
“Lavonnia moved to southern California when her fifth husband, Wayne Allright of Allrighty Tires in Tulsa, Oklahoma passed on to that big air pump in the sky. I love you, Mom. I have to go. Now.” Annie tried to put the phone down. But she couldn’t ’cause suddenly it felt hot-glued to her hand and possessed by her mother’s insistent voice.
“Wait! I’ve got a message for you from….”
“Frankly, every time someone has a message for me, my life turns to shit. Love you, Mom. Bye bye,” she said. Her hand shook as she dropped the phone back into its cradle.
There was a knock on the door. Oh, how Annie loved unwanted and unexpected knocks on her door. They were always so inviting. Relaxing. Stroke producing. She leaned her head back and yelled, “I turned it down. I’m dealing with fools, idiots and family. What more do you want from me?”
Outside of Annie’s front door, Detectives Rafe Campillio and Kyle Pardue looked at each other. Pardue combed his hair, unbuttoned the top button on his shirt, popped an Altoid into his mouth and knocked on the door, again. Rafe wondered why Kyle didn’t just unzip his pants, pull out his pendejo, and knock it on the door as well. “Hey, Annie. It’s Detective Rafe Campillio. Is this a good time to talk?”
“Since when did you get all girly and ask if it’s a good time to talk to a suspect?” Kyle asked.
“Since when have you cared what I do?” Rafe said.
Kyle pointed both index fingers at Rafe. “Cha-Ching! Got me,” he said.
“Hello, Ms. Graceland. It’s Detective Kyle Pardue. I so enjoyed our conversation the other night on the Bollywood Two set. Did you get my card?”
Annie involuntarily gagged when she heard Kyle’s voice. She looked at Julia and Grady and whispered, “The cops! I told you to turn down the volume. I’d lay money they know you’re naked and high. I heard the pokey’s not a pretty place for drunkety nude artists.”
Julia and Grady freaked, grabbed their purse and backpack respectively and raced out the tangerine back door.
Derrick smiled. “Serves them right. Slackers. Thieves. Opportunists.”
“Familiar territory?” Annie said as she shut the tangerine door. “Hey, Detective Rafe. It’s more an… iffy time. One second,” she said and spritzed lavender spray multiple times through her teensy apartment.
She waited a couple of moments and opened her front door. “Hi, Rafe. Detective Pardue. Maybe you gentleman could call before you stopped by? I’ve been baking,” Annie said and walked towards her kitchen, head high.
Kyle looked at Rafe. “Oh, I’m “Detective”, and you’re just Rafe?” They walked inside and, at the exact same moment, sniffed. Repeatedly.
Okay, thought Annie. What smelled like pot that could she pretend was a culinary experiment gone wrong?
Derrick came to the rescue. He pointed to Grady’s clothes heaped in the corner. He pinched his nose with his fingers. She walked over, picked them up and sniffed. Perfect! His socks stunk like weed. She held them high over her head so Rafe and Kyle had to see them. “Can you believe it? My friend’s training for a marathon, got a blister, had to take off his socks and left them here. I’m sorry, they smell funny,” she said, placed the socks in her recycling bin and shoved it out
her back door.
“Hey, I’ve got some fresh butter cookies in the oven,” Annie said.
Rafe and Kyle both stared as she bent over and pulled a tray of fresh cookies out of the oven. Rafe kept a poker face and hid his irritation. Kyle’s voice lowered. “Butter cookies in the oven. Come on, Rafe. She seemed pretty comfortable on the porn set.” He raised his voice to normal speaking level. “So, Ms. Graceland, you and Sienna Saffron long time friends?” He poked the couch’s creases and flipped its cushions, probably looking for pot buds or drug paraphernalia.
“No.” Annie frowned. “Recent,” she said and put the cookie tray on a cooling rack.
“What did you and Ms. Saffron have in common? Besides wanting Dr. Fuller dead?” asked Kyle. “Hey, those cookies taste as good as they smell?”
“Too bad you’ll never know.”
Rafe glared at Kyle.
“Annie, we understand you rescued a young man today who was attacked at the Yogi Meditation Shrine,” Kyle said. “His name’s Franco Fennedy.”
“Right. I already talked to the officers on scene about that. But I was freaked out and didn’t catch his full name,” she answered. Just managed Franco’s address, the identity of his biological parents, and the nasty 8 X 10 photos previously hidden in his desk drawer, that now sat in her kitchen hidden in the pile of bills.
Kyle picked up a fuzzy cat toy shaped like a mouse under a couch cushion. He held it gingerly with his left hand and eyed it for anything incriminating. “Did you know, Annie, that Franco Fennedy listed Clarissa Driver as his emergency contact person?”